"The lunar module Pegasus lifts off from the Marius Hills with Fred Haise and Jerry Carr, for a rendezvous with Bill Pogue and the Command Module Resolution ..."

Completely made up captions for photos that were never taken. But fun to speculate ...

robsouth

I asked Richard Gordon if any names had been chosen for the Apollo 18 spacecraft and he said no, they never got that far.

I suppose a better question would have been, 'what names would you give to a LM and CM if you had the choice'?

Sabrenaut

Maybe off topic a bit, but were there any attempts to give names to Apollo 8, the Skylab Apollos or the ASTP Apollo? If not does anyone know why?

Tom

There really was no need with only one spacecraft flying.

Robert Pearlman

To expand upon what Tom wrote, the purpose of naming spacecraft wasn't just ceremonial: it was to provide call signs for the vehicles.

If only one spacecraft was flying, then it was easy enough for the crew to say "Houston, Apollo 8," or for mission control to respond, "Go ahead, Apollo 8."

Sabrenaut

Thanks... I had heard these justifications before, just forgot about them. Still, Mercury and Shuttles flew solo and were named. Seems to me a real spaceship like Apollo should have only left the pad after a proper christening. Fantastic forum, this, by the way.

Robert Pearlman

quote:Originally posted by Sabrenaut:Still, Mercury and Shuttles flew solo and were named.

Mission patches replaced spacecraft names in Gemini, in part because Gus Grissom was insisting on naming Gemini 3 "Molly Brown," which management did not find humorous.

The space shuttle orbiters were named, in part, because from the start they were anticipated to interact with another space vehicle (a space station). The orbiters were also going to need to be distinguished on the ground, because unlike Apollo and earlier programs, they were reusable and would be processed between flights.